Facts or Feelings.

[Johnboy]

I do not normally pass comment on KG Magazine on forum but after 4 months of John Walker's articles I am begining to think that he actually doesn't contribute anything worthwhile to the magazine.
I do not expect to be treated to 'doom and gloom' and wildly inaccurate organic scare tactics!
It seems that John Walker's feelings are begining to replace facts which is a very dangerous route to travel.
Steve Ott wonders why organic and conventional gardeners cannot get together well John Walker's 'feelings' are the classic example why it can never work.
JB.

[snooky]

Evening JB,
I fully agree with you about John Walker,He does seem to be full of himself.

[Westi]

I don't have an opinion on the John Walkers' stance but his
language is a bit flowery to hold my interest - I don't much
go for 'plugging into' the earth for example. Too too much
artistic lisence - keep it black & white and to the point then
I will read the article. Just before this he wrote 'don't run
away at this point - sorry I'd already hoofed it!

Westi

[glallotments]

Maybe it's me but it wasn't instantly obvious what "meeja" was and I have never heard of "pro-chemical punitocracy"

[Geoff]

If his articles are a representative sample no wonder "Organic Gardening" had to close down, even the organically committed would recognise them as garbage. "Kitchen Garden" could follow it if it doesn't concentrate on factual rather than fatuous content.

[Elaine]

I have to admit to not reading these articles at all. After getting half way through the first offering, I found myself automatically "tuning out" and gave up. I have only given the pages a cursory glance since then.

If I need any help and advice regarding Organic growing, I know exactly where to look........here on this forum!

Cheers.

[PLUMPUDDING]

John Walker is not representative of the writers in Organic Magazine. Most of them were knowledgeable and interesting and on the whole it was a very good read.

He seems to have a chip on his shoulder and is trying too hard to be controversial. He just comes over as a miserable git who wants a rant and chucks a few quasi scientific things in he's picked up somewhere to make it sound as if he knows what he is talking about.

[Johnboy]

Hi Plumpudding,
I am afraid that I never actually read a copy of the Organic Magazine but I am sure that if the articles were as good as the "Apples with Attitude"
Gaby Bartai talks to John Butterworth (KG Nov 2009) when they really do not come any better. Flipping a couple of pages or so to "Going with my Guts" by John Walker and it is not really possible to make any sort of reasonable comparison. To me, that article is not worthy of publication anywhere least of all in our Kitchen Garden Magazine.
JB.

[PLUMPUDDING]

Hi Johnboy,

I apologise for my rather shallow reply about the article in question. I should not have made a personal attack on the poor chap as he obviously feels very strongly about his subject. I was expressing my general feelings about a lot of what he writes and I don't enjoy or find his writing factual, informative or particularly controversial. He tries hard but just comes over as a rather irritating not too well informed fanatic. Oops being personal again.

I agree with the other comments about his strange use of words in inverted commas and the content was also rather weak.

He would have put forward better, more up to date, arguments on the subject if he had taken a selection of the letters from our discussion in the KG forum and it wouldn't have taken him two pages to pad it out.

[peter]

Well!

Having carefully read the article I have to say that personally I don't want to see any more articles like that in what is a generally serious and informative magazine. Not one practical piece of advice or guidance on techniques, or how to minimise or avoid chemical blunderbusses, just some pre-prejudiced blether about feelings that read like a recent convert to the cause.

I have to give credit where it is due, at least the sub-heading gave fair warning "It's time to stop using our heads when wrangling over the pros and cons of growing food organically and trust more in the visceral." (Yes I left out the incorrectly applied comma)

In essence this article, immensely padded out said "I garden organically because for various reasons that I cannot fully explain or justify I feel better in myself for doing so" and that is a viewpoint that I can accept when expressed succinctly, but not when presented as a sermon.

Extrapolate a bit and (with some imagination) the sort of logic used could be stretched thus.

"Boffins might say that it is an unproved method of adding fertility to the soil, but I feel that it is the best and most natural method, proved by centuries of ancient practice, plus I get the most ecstatic "plugged in feeling" as I rummage my hands through the intestines of my latest human sacrifice while my assistants dance naked widdershins around the alter"

Please sign up the Soil Association for a regular column instead, at least Jack Hunter can read up on his subject and quote relevant research to back it up.

[Geoff]

I see he’s still with us – one wonders why.
This time we’ve got talking worms as well as talking orifices. It’s interesting he composts all sorts of printed matter, elsewhere organic practice seems to question the origins of the cardboard before they compost it and the acceptability of the pigments. I also compost everything I can think of but not tea bags, why use them? As usual with organic zealots he compares all chemical growing with all organic rather than the balanced approach usually championed here.
I’m afraid I cannot see this idea of keeping a thin organic layer on the surface of doing anything to raise the captured carbon – surely traditional digging a spade down would do more. A foot of humus rich soil must be better than a few inches. It’s alright being against centralised recycling but where do most people live? Do they have access to land to add the compost to?
I’m waiting for future articles to repeat the theory once propounded here that green manure can rectify deficiencies, even trace element shortages. In a closed organic system using self made compost and green manure deficiencies can never be rectified, with the exception of nitrogen fixation, if it isn’t in the soil in the first place it can’t be in the compost or the green manure.
He has some points to make but has no idea how to make them and his style simply does not belong in the magazine.
Thank goodness for Edwin Oxlade. A wonderful condemnation of biodynamic nonsense and a recognition that plants don’t care where their NPK comes from. I’m a Piscean rather than a Cancerian and am equally sceptic; perhaps it doesn’t matter when your birthday is for you to realise all dogma based on planetary motions or spirits beyond the stars is nonsense.

[peter]

Plus the crass and ignorant comment about forest soil.
Which coincidentally is EXACTLY what he then champions as what does he think soil that is not dug but covered with leaf mould and rotting leaves is?

[Johnboy]

I really look upon John Walker's writings as an assault on the intelligence of the readers of the magazine. Even those who are strictly organic must by now realize that he is doing harm rather than good to the organic cause.
His December rendition is again full of inaccuracies. Again he mentions DEFRA in order to try and add credence to his article. Does he think that we are that easily fooled?
With the bin removed his compost is a total disgrace and the classic example as how NOT to make compost! I would be totally ashamed if that was my compost exposed!
I suspect that the worms used as an example are not the 'laughing variety' from John's own bin but the turn-out of a wormery.
I would like to discuss the two soil samples in a separate posting so will make not further mention here.
I call upon The Editor to give us all an indication as to how long we have to endure John Walker's articles.
It is my humble opinion that John Walker's articles are ruining an otherwise superb magazine.
JB.

[Johnboy]

As for the two soil samples Page 63 KG Magazine December 2009.

Who is trying to kid who? To convert the LH sample to the RH sample would take an awful lot longer than the text below suggests, if ever. My thoughts are that it would take more than a gardeners gardening lifetime. As it is I simply do not believe that the two samples are remotely related.
Can you even imagine how much compost it would take to convert the area of an allotment?
If you look in the October issue page 61 there are some of John Walkers beds that are roughly dug and spread with manure/compost and surprise I do not see any soil remotely like the LH sample not even a tinge of red! Come on now we deserve honesty!
There are many many thousands of properties that have not got the facilities to make compost and if they did nowhere to dispose of it. At present these properties have nowhere to dispose of vegetable waste than in the dustbin. Once in the dustbin it is not possible to separate it out so it is destined to go into landfill. If with a slops bucket this waste can be kept and collected separately then Local Authorities have a chance to deal with this waste to the benefit us all. A win win situation!
Ludlow in South Shropshire have collected vegetable waste from Ludlow and Church Stretton and fed it to a digester which ingests the waste and the Methane drawn off to produce electricity. What remains is a very rich fertilizer of perfectly composted material ready to either distribute to gardeners or to be spread on surrounding farmland.
Of course this scheme has run into difficulties because of the organic faction who say that the waste could be full of impurities and it would be wrong to reuse it.
Sometimes I despair of organic stupidity!
JB.

[alan refail]

Well, fair play to John Walker: he doesn't like the new Gardeners' World either

http://www.landscapejuice.com/2009/06/g ... ening.html